Holding On
by Ryeloza
Summary: They're going to survive this together. It's just a matter of holding on.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **This is me celebrating the end of March, nothing more. In other words: not mine.

**Story Summary: **They're going to survive this together. It's just a matter of holding on. A Tom/Lynette fic that takes place at the very end of season three's "What Would We Do Without You?" after they get home from the hospital. This may be multi-chaptered.

**Holding On**

A story by **Ryeloza**

Lynette had never known a day could be so endless. She'd woken in the morning in a fog of anger and pain and now, just twenty-three long hours later, there was nothing left but the acute awareness of desperation. In just one day, life had beaten the crap out of her and all that was left was the shell of a woman who had never been more afraid.

The house was asleep. She and Tom had driven home in relative silence, each thinking their own dreadful thoughts, and while he had woken Karen and murmured soft, inexplicable thanks, Lynette had crept away to check on their children. Five soundly sleeping bodies in five little beds, dreaming away in the secure knowledge that they were safe and loved. Their world hadn't fallen apart yet; it only made Lynette more on edge to think that very soon it might.

For a moment, she paused outside her own bedroom, taking a moment to brace herself before she went in. She wasn't quite sure what to expect. The resentment between her and Tom was gone, deflated by the terrifying words of the doctor, but in the ruins of their anger, Lynette didn't know what was left for them. The uncertainty left her aching.

Carefully, she opened the door and walked into the room. At some point while she was looking in on the kids, Tom had come upstairs and he was obviously waiting for her. Hesitantly, she met his eyes; in them was a look so soft, loving and tenuous that it made her love him and hate him at the same time. Somehow it would be easier if he'd stayed angry with her; it would make what the doctor had said less real, his words less serious. As it stood, she knew that Tom's fears had prompted his forgiveness and she wasn't sure she entirely wanted or deserved that yet.

There was a breath of pause that went on forever and then, finally, Tom threw the opening punch. "Do you know what I said to Rick when we had lunch?"

Lynette's grip on the doorknob tightened. Talking about Rick still felt like a vise was squeezing her heart. Partly because she missed him; mostly because now that Tom knew the truth, she felt like the worst person in the world. Unsure that she could keep her voice even, she simply shook her head.

"I told him that no matter what had happened between you and him, I'd never leave you; I'd never stop loving you." Tom took a deep breath, clearly suppressing tears. "I will _never_ stop loving you."

And there it was: the comfort of reassurance; the hope of rebuilding from the wreckage. She'd done a horrible thing and, somehow, everything was about to get even worse, but Tom wasn't giving up on her. She felt as though she was staring into the sun and it was burning her alive with its indescribable beauty. In that moment, she broke.

For a few minutes, she could only stand there and cry while Tom watched her through his own tear-filled eyes. She wanted him to come to her, to hold her and quiet her sobs, but she knew that he couldn't. Not until she showed him that she wasn't giving up either. It was something he could no longer take for granted, and that was no one's fault but hers. "I—" her breath hitched several times as she tried to get her crying under control, "—I fired him because he wanted to start something. Tom, I swear, we never did anything but flirt. I could never…" Lynette wiped her face with her hands, ignoring the mess of tears and snot that came with such hysterical crying. "You are the man I married. You are the man I promised to spend the rest of my life with. And I could never break that promise."

Tom nodded and took a shuddery breath, no longer able to stave off his own tears. "Come here," he commanded quietly, and Lynette forced herself to find the strength to cross the room to their bed. With an uncharacteristic meekness, Lynette crawled into Tom's lap, throwing her arms around his neck, burying her head in his chest and drawing her knees up so she was curled against him. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly, and even though it wasn't the most comfortable position she felt secure for the first time in weeks—if she was honest, probably even months.

"Is it just an obligation? Being married to me?" he asked quietly; she trembled at the insecurity she heard in his voice, knowing she'd caused that, and he kissed the top of her head several times.

"No." She felt herself calm as she realized that what she said was true. Her dinners with Rick might have been an escape, but she couldn't run away forever. Eventually she had to come home and home was in the arms of the one person who would never leave her. She raised her head to look into Tom's eyes—driving home the point, hoping to put this to rest. "It's a choice. One I made years ago, one I make today and one I'll still make in twenty years. I love _you._ More than you'll ever know."

Tom leaned forward and kissed her forehead. "You're going to be fine," he whispered, though she didn't think either of them truly believed that. "We don't even know if you're sick yet." He smiled sadly at her and wiped away some of her tears with the pads of his thumbs. She mirrored his movement and then kissed him briefly.

"You need to sleep," said Tom.

"I know." She kissed him again, slower and softer and this time he responded in kind before drawing away.

"Lynette…"

"I need you to know that I love you."

"I do."

"And I need to know that you love me."

Tom nodded, his words coming out in a comforting sigh. "More than anything."

Slowly, Lynette unfurled her legs and escaped from Tom's embrace so she could peel her shirt from her body. He was watching her with a look of lust and hesitation; he wanted this, but he wasn't sure that she really did. The ambivalence was painful to see, but as she tugged off his shirt and saw the scratches from where she'd hurt him earlier, she knew exactly why he felt that way. "Lynette," he said, purposefully giving her an out, "it's four in the morning."

"Almost five," she corrected. She straddled him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him toward her so their naked chests were in direct contact. He took a shuddery breath and rolled so she was underneath him. Gently, he brushed her hair out of her eyes.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked quietly.

In a day where Lynette hadn't felt less certain in her life, this was the one thing she knew for sure: "I need you."

It was enough.

Tom nodded nearly imperceptibly and began to kiss her again almost too tenderly. She threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled him to her, forcing him to kiss her more deeply. After exposing herself as so fragile, she needed to prove that she wouldn't break. In response, Tom ground his hips into her and she smiled against his lips, glad to feel his weight on top of her, solid and dependable; it was a consistency she needed now that the world around her was falling apart.

Despite his protestations of the late hour, Tom seemed to be in no hurry now that she had him in the mood. After kissing her for several long minutes, he moved his lips to her neck, sucking and kissing and biting her in the sensitive nook he'd discovered long ago. She ran her hands all along the muscles of his back, enjoying the slow, deliberate feel of him—he was marking her as his, and as childish and inconvenient as a hickey usually seemed, tonight it didn't bother her.

Tom continued to kiss his way down her body, paying less attention than he usually did to her breasts, and when he reached her pajama bottoms she lifted her lower body so he could remove them. Lynette was surprised when he didn't follow suit and instead just continued to kiss her—her hip, her thigh, her knee, all the way down to her toes. Then, finally, he shimmied out of his pajamas and edged his way back up the bed so they were face-to-face.

"You are so beautiful," he said. "Head to toe, inside-out. Beautiful." She blushed, unsure why when she'd heard him say it a hundred times over. "And I am so lucky to have you."

She opened her mouth to return the sentiment—because it was true; she'd never felt so grateful to have him as she did at that moment—but he effectively cut her off by kissing her again. There was something more desperate in this kiss; something that conveyed his fear and hers and their pain and regrets and everything that had ever been hurtful in their relationship. With his hands, he urged her legs apart and she eagerly obliged him, more than ready when he finally pushed into her. In midst of the pleasure and emotion of their love-making, of Tom's increasingly frantic kisses, Lynette felt more and more drawn back to her center; calmer and more confident. They could survive whatever was coming. Would survive it.

It was just a matter of holding on.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **Still not mine! I can't say that often enough.

**A/n: **Thank you so much for the reviews for this story. If it hadn't been for your great feedback this probably would have remained a one shot. I hope you like this part as much as the previous one.

**Holding On**

A story by **Ryeloza**

_The world was black and white and moved in slow motion like a leaf caught in a lazy wind. Tom stood next to his bicycle while his friends jostled one another in a hurry to be the first one to get into the diner. Bobby had made such outrageous claims about one of the waitresses who worked there that they had ditched school and biked all the way to Riverton just to satisfy their desperate curiosity. But now Tom wasn't watching them argue and shove and bully one another because his eyes were glued to a car across the street. _

_His father's car._

_The car he'd thrown up in once after he ate too much at a baseball game. The car his father had let him drive a couple of months ago even though he was only fourteen. The car with the ding in the bumper from the time his sister backed up into the garage wall._

_His father's car._

_All of his friends' voices drifted away into silent nothingness and there was no noise from the street or the diner or any of the other bustling activity on the street. Against his will, Tom glided—literally glided through the air without lifting a foot—across the street to his father's car and he tried to scream that he didn't want to look and he tried to run away but he couldn't. He couldn't do anything but approach the window and peer into the car in wide-eyed horror because _he knew_ what he'd see inside and he didn't, didn't, didn't want to see. But then there it was in all the bright horror of color amidst a colorless world._

_Lynette, pinned beneath the strong, anonymous back of a man with no visible identity but Tom knew was Rick._

_Suddenly he was no longer the fourteen-year-old boy about to discover his father's infidelity but instead the forty-one-year-old man whose wife had betrayed him. And everything around him melted away but the car and the people making out in the back seat. Soundlessly he screamed and screamed and tried to get into the car, tried to stop them but _nothing happened…

Tom awoke with a jolt. His eyes opened and a shiver ran through him, but even with his heavy breathing he barely made a move as he came out of his nightmare. The pale light of dawn creeped into the bedroom and even though Tom knew he'd only slept maybe two hours before being so abruptly awakened, he wouldn't go back to sleep. In these first few moments of wakefulness, the dream didn't fade away and he could still see every horrifying image as it replayed again and again.

_It didn't happen_, he told himself slowly. Breath in. Breath out. Calmly. _It didn't happen_.

For several long minutes, Tom lay flat on his back and ineffectually tried to calm his breathing. But whatever denials he made, it wasn't enough to relax him. After that dream, in this morning that seemed unreal after a night that was horrifyingly too real, Tom couldn't let it go. For the first time in his life, Lynette seemed unreachable; an unattainable soul who was just beyond his grasp of understanding.

Tom turned his head to actually see his wife. She'd rolled onto her stomach in her sleep, the sheet had slipped down so her back was bared to him, and one hand was thrown over her head on the pillow. As he fixated on the slow rise and fall of her breathing, his own heartbeat finally steadied. She was there, with him, just as she'd always been. And the true reality wasn't that she betrayed him—in whatever sense of the word—but that she was sick. There was a certainty inside of him—horrible and nefarious and dreadful, but certain all the same—that this was the truth. Even though she wouldn't have the biopsy until that afternoon, even though they wouldn't have the results for a few days after that, Tom knew all the same. The only question now was just how bad it would be. And in light of that, nothing else mattered.

With terrible restraint, Tom stopped himself from reaching out to touch his wife. As much as he needed the reassurance that physical contact brought, Lynette needed to sleep more. The time would come when she would need him to hold her and kiss her and dry her tears, and it would come much too soon.

He felt guilty as hell because if he had been less preoccupied with himself, maybe he would have seen all the warning signs differently. Maybe he would have forced her to see the doctor when he noticed how pale and drawn and exhausted she was instead of attributing it to stress. Maybe he would have seen her shrinking appetite as a sign of illness instead of a sign of her unhappiness. He was reexamining every little off-putting thing she'd done in the past few months and seeing it through new eyes. The remorse and worry he felt were making him sick, but there was nothing he could do to quell it.

If the past few months had been all about him, though, then the coming months had to be all about her. And it would be hard to forget even if he had already—mostly—forgiven, but if this was his penance then so be it. She meant more to him than anything else in the world and if he lost her now he'd never be a whole person again.

_Do you know that?_ he thought. _Do you know that I'd take this hardship from you in a second if only I could because I care about you more than I care about myself?_

Tom ran his hands over his face, rubbing the sleep from his bleary eyes. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he didn't say those things. Didn't let her know often enough how much she meant to him. When they'd made love a couple of hours ago there had been something desperate about it. His desperation for her to know that he loved her and forgave her and would never leave her; her desperation for him to know she loved him and to be forgiven and for reassurance. Afterward she had seemed calmer and steadier, but maybe it was all his imagination. Maybe it was all a hope. A hope that they were going to be okay.

Maybe hope wasn't enough any more.

With the absolute need to be proactive, Tom rolled over to open the drawer in his nightstand and pull out a notebook. Keeping paper at the bedside was an old habit from their advertising days that neither he nor Lynette had been able to break. Often it still came in handy. Searching blindly for a pen and finding his prize triumphantly, Tom sat up in bed and with one last glance to Lynette, began to write.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: **Still not mine.

**A/n: **This is definitely a story spurred on by your continual feedback, so I thank you all for reviewing. You guys are wonderful.

**Holding On**

A story by **Ryeloza**

When Lynette woke up the next morning, life was shockingly, mundanely normal. Tom was cleaning up the chaos that remained in the aftermath of breakfast; her kids were scattered between the television and the front yard; the washing machine was churning with its usual diligence. The house was alive with the usual activity of seven people and Lynette felt hopelessly conflicted as she stood in the kitchen sipping a cup of coffee. In the light of revelation, it seemed like life shouldn't go on so ordinarily—and yet she was glad that it was. The normalcy felt like a security blanket, and the thought was such a comfort that Lynette nearly forgot the irony that this had been what she had been running from for so many weeks now. Yet, at the same time, she wanted to rage against this moment for not acknowledging that her whole world might be falling apart. The ambivalence made no sense to her; the only thing she knew for certain was that she was sick of feeling torn.

"Mommy?" Penny tugged impatiently on the tie of Lynette's bathrobe and she realized that her daughter had tried to draw her distracted attention more than once. With a not-quite-truly reassuring smile that Lynette hoped was enough to fool a four-year-old, she looked down at Penny. "Can you tie my shoes?"

"Sure." Crouching down, she fiddled with the little laces until they were firmly double knotted while Penny occupied herself with playing with Lynette's hair. A small pang of heartsickness hit her at the thought that their days of playing beauty parlor might reach an early end and she ran a self-conscious hand through her hair as she stood. Penny ran off as Lynette reminded herself for the hundredth time that it wasn't certain. She didn't know anything yet for sure.

Tom came up behind her and leaned in to quickly peck her cheek. "You are a million miles away this morning, beautiful. Did you hear what I just said?"

Lynette shook her head and turned around. "Sorry. I guess I'm a little distracted."

Briefly, Tom's eyes clouded in pain and worry, but he covered the look quickly with a slightly forced smile. She felt irrationally annoyed that he—the only other soul in the world who knew what was going on—was trying to pretend everything was fine and she crossed her arms defensively.

"I called Karen," said Tom. "She's going to come over and watch the kids this afternoon."

Lynette fought a bubble of panic in her chest. "You didn't tell her what's going on, did you?"

"Nothing is going on yet." The words were a lie and they both knew it, but neither of them corrected the sentiment. "She was a little concerned. She asked if everything was okay. I told her they just wanted to run some more tests."

She nodded; a satisfied acknowledgement that Tom had come up with an acceptable reason. The thought of telling anyone the truth made her nearly dizzy with fear and anxiety. She felt safer—stronger—being cocooned: just her, Tom and their horrifying secret. "Did you thank her for coming over last night?"

"Yeah. She's just worried about you."

Lynette shrugged. She wanted to say that she was fine, but it was just another useless lie, and Tom was using up enough denials for both of them. "I don't want anyone else to know."

"_We_ don't know anything yet." Hesitantly, Tom stepped closer to her and slipped his hands under her robe to rest on her narrow hips. Lynette had to make herself pull focus, thrown off by the painful worry that Tom would always pause now before he touched her.

"But once we find out…for sure…" Lynette sighed. "I don't want anyone to know. I wouldn't be able to stand it."

Gently, Tom tipped her chin up, forcing her to look him in the eye. "This doesn't make you weak."

Lynette flinched. In an instant, Tom bypassed every platitude, every question, every rationalization and got to the heart of the matter. Sometimes it was frightening how well he knew her. She shut her eyes, trying to hide from him, but Tom didn't pull away. "Hey," he said softly. "Look at me."

Reluctantly, unhappily, Lynette opened her eyes. "This…battle…whatever it might be…It's going to remind everyone how strong you are. It's going to remind you how strong you are."

It took everything in Lynette not to argue; not to scoff. How this man—this man who she had hurt and betrayed and distanced herself from, only to run back to his arms the minute she remembered how much she needed him—didn't see her as pathetically weak was beyond her comprehension. Once again she was reminded of how angry he should be; of how much she didn't really believe she'd earned his forgiveness yet.

"I'm so tired," she said, not bothering to elaborate. It was too complex to explain: that she was tired of how out-of-control her life had been in the last year and a half; tired of hating herself; tired of her life; tired of feeling this way.

Tom leaned in and kissed her forehead. "I know. I am too." He said in a way that made her think that he really did know. And maybe he did. Maybe he felt the same way. He pulled her close to his chest, holding her tightly. "But we're in this together. Just don't shut me out."

Lynette tightened her arms around her husband, promising him without words. He was right.

They were in this together.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: **This does not belong to me. I wish it did, but wishing doesn't make it so.

**A/n: **The date may be a little contradictory. I know that the end of season three was actually in 2007, but it's always been my personal belief that season two took place over two years instead of one, thus bumping the timeline up a bit. Hence the 2008 date in this chapter.

More importantly, thanks so much for reading. Please let me know what you think!

**Holding On**

A story by **Ryeloza**

Tom hated waiting.

He supposed that in this sort of situation, no one liked waiting, but he, especially, felt imprisoned. The waiting room was uncomfortable and sterile and the television was set to some cooking show with an annoyingly boisterous woman who smiled too widely. Around him were a score of people meant to remind him of what was coming, of how his life was about to change: women with caps or scarves covering their bald heads; men with shaking hands and waxy skin; and worse still, the people with them with their worried eyes and fake smiles. It was a living nightmare, and there he was trapped, suffering in silence as he waited.

The doctor had sent Lynette to get a PET scan and then Tom was allowed to go into a room with her and hold her hand and pretend to be brave as they did the biopsy. He simultaneously dreaded and anticipated the moment when they called him back; really it was only running from one horror to another, but at least his wife would be there, solid and real and a breathing reminder that death was not as close as it felt in this room. But it was still waiting. Waiting for the test to be done. Waiting to go home. Waiting for the results.

Tom hated waiting.

A girl sat across from him. She was paper thin and looked too frail to actually move, but Tom watched as she drew a pen across a paper, curving it upward to create whatever picture was in her mind. The movement was graceful, delicate but purposeful, and Tom wondered what image she was composing. She looked about twelve in her oversized sweatshirt and baggy pants, but Tom would wager a guess that she was actually closer to twenty. At twenty he'd been going to parties and pulling all-nighters and considering getting a tattoo that he was now very grateful he'd never gotten. A place like this—a moment like this—a sickness like this—had never once entered his mind, and he wondered what kind of life the girl across from him had. Did she still dream about the future, or was that a fleeting thought she couldn't afford to devote time to?

Tom shook himself and rubbed his hands over his tired eyes. He shouldn't be thinking such morbid thoughts. Not now. Not when he was about to go into a room where he had to be strong and positive and absolutely certain that the future wasn't an eternally dreary gray rain. Surrounded as he was, though, his choices were limited: focus on the television, or find something else to occupy himself. The decision wasn't hard, and with shaking hands, Tom reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the little notebook he'd started writing in that morning.

_May 26, 2008_

_Dear Lynette,_

_I'm sitting in the hospital waiting room, well, _waiting_ for you, and, if I'm completely honest, I'm mostly trying to distract myself because letting my thoughts wander freely is terrifying right now. But it's basically impossible to be in this place, completely surrounded by people but utterly alone, and not think gruesome thoughts. You know I'm not a patient person. I try to be, but I always push too fast or jump ahead of myself or try to have what I want as soon as I want it. It's because I can't stand waiting. I can't stand not knowing what's coming._

_Do you remember the first time we kissed?_

_I'm not talking about the story we always tell. Not about that time that we shared a cab home from the airport and when we got to your apartment building I kissed you. I'm talking about that time in the men's bathroom at that bar. What was that place called? Pepe's? Peppo's? Something like that._

_A bunch of us went out after work and I remember that Jack Johnson invited you on a whim because no one really thought you would come. But you did. And I was shocked and excited and just _happy_ because every day it seemed like I never saw you enough. Never talked to you enough. Of course, I was in complete denial about all of that because I couldn't really understand what was going on. Our relationship had been nothing but professional. I was dating Annabel. It didn't make any sense. But there I was, like some crazy teenage boy with a crush, just sitting in that bar watching the door until you came in. It had been raining and the humidity made the little strands of hair around your forehead curl and I thought, "God, she's really beautiful," and my mouth went dry and my hands got clammy and I wasn't sure I'd even be able to talk to you. Which wasn't a problem, because you went right over and sat down at a table with Jack and Natalie and whoever else was there._

_So I kept drinking and you started drinking and we were a whole world apart even though we were close enough that I could hear your laugh. And then at some point I finally got intoxicated enough to work up some perverse form of courage to go over and sit down next to you at that table. You were in the middle of telling that story about that time your college boyfriend forced you to be part of his improv act and he dumped a bucket of water over your head even though you were wearing some clingy white tank top and you ended up punching him. Which is one of your best anecdotes—really funny—but the whole time I sat there picturing you all wet with that tank top clinging to your body. So I still couldn't talk to you even though I wanted to more than anything. But you know me…I'm not the smoothest guy in the world and even though I kept lying to myself that it wasn't like that with you, that's exactly what it was. _

_So you got up to go to the bathroom and then a couple of minutes later the eight beers I had caught up to me and I had to go too. I walked into that men's room and you were standing there, washing your hands, and your eyes caught mine in the mirror and you said, "The line's too long for the ladies' room," and I'm pretty sure I just smiled like a dork because of course you wouldn't think twice about using a men's bathroom. And I knew that, somehow, even then. Or maybe I just think I did, looking back on it now, and at the time I was just more attracted to you for being so ballsy. I don't know. I do know that I was pretty drunk at that point and I was just standing there, staring, and then out of the blue I said, "You're really sexy." Whenever I think back on that, I'm simply amazed that you didn't punch me too. But you just turned around and you shook your head and said, "Tom, I think you're drunk."_

_And I thought about how I was drunk. And about how being drunk was a great excuse for a lot of behaviors. Which is wonderful logic, isn't it? But it was that thought that made me take those four steps toward you and wrap my arms around you and kiss you right where you stood. _

_I know that you always say that I was drunk and didn't really know what I was doing, but Lynette, drunk or not I swear that was smartest decision I'd made in my life. Kissing you was like being outside under a shower of fireworks. It was perfect. When I pulled back, the first thing I wanted to do was to kiss you again, but you just gave me this sad little half-smile and patted my shoulder and said goodnight. And that was the end of it._

_But I couldn't stop thinking about you after that night, Lynette. I figured that what I did was inexcusable; that I was lucky that you hadn't reported me for sexual harassment. And I knew that I couldn't take it any further. That if you wanted anything else to happen, then you had to be the one to initiate it. So I thought I'd just wait and see what happened. And we both know how long that lasted._

_I'm lousy at waiting, and I'm always at my worst when I'm waiting for you. I know that lately I've been pushing you a lot. Pushing you to talk to me and to get back to normal and to forgive me for being so selfish and I'm sorry if I went too fast; if I'm still going too fast. I just want us to be okay again. I know that it's going to take time. I know that it's not a quick fix. But… Well, I guess the selfish answer is that I want it to be easy. I want you to just wake up tomorrow morning and be okay and happy and smile the way you used to. _

_When did you stop being happy?_

"Mr. Scavo?"

Tom looked up from his notebook into the kindly face of a nurse who gazed at him with patient eyes. As he clicked his pen and tucked it inside of the notebook, hiding them away in his pocket again, he wondered just how many times she'd prompted him.

"They're ready for you to go in now. I'll show you which room."

Tom nodded, gratefully, and stood to follow the nurse. As he passed the girl who was drawing, he paused for a moment to glimpse at the picture she'd been working on so diligently for the past hour. The scene before him was simple: a boy and a girl sitting on a beach, watching the seagulls that flew above the waves. Tom's breath caught in his throat at the sight of it, a picture full of life and optimism, completely contradictory to everything he feared. It was a contradiction he'd sadly needed, and in that instant, hope returned to him, shining through his heart like the steady, reassuring beam from a lighthouse. It was hope that might only last the rest of the afternoon or until they left the hospital or even only until he walked down the hall, but there was no denying it; however long it lasted, it was exactly what Tom needed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: **If I was a bit more delusional I might believe this is mine. Who knows? Maybe someday I'll completely lose my mind.

**A/n: **Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! You guys truly blew me away with your feedback and I really, really appreciate it. Consider it the reason that I got this next chapter written so quickly. I hope that you enjoy!

**Holding On**

A story by **Ryeloza**

Lynette had already shut her eyes when she felt the needle prick her skin. Not The Needle, of course. This was just a local anesthetic; a way to numb the pain before they plunged The Needle into her neck and drew out a sample of cells that would determine whether or not she had cancer. The procedure had been explained to her very clinically—through the words of an emotionless doctor who very clearly and reassuringly knew what he was doing, but obviously had never personally had a large needle driven into his neck. She'd just nodded in agreement with this sadistic form of diagnosis (what other choice did she have?), laid down on her side as instructed and blindly reached out a hand for her husband's.

She loved Tom's hands. He didn't always say the right words or do the right thing or express himself the way he intended, but one thing she had always been able to count on was the firm grasp of his hand holding hers. Even last night, when he hadn't wanted her, when he had intentionally, angrily pulled away from her touch for the first time she could honestly remember, he'd taken her hand when it mattered the most. He was still holding on to her now; her lifeline, just as he'd always been before.

In this moment, when time seemed to stretch out infinitely in the breath of anticipation, Lynette forced her thoughts to continue on in a raw, abandoned dance, not caring what she thought so long as it she didn't focus on the coming of The Needle. Rick's hands had been so different than Tom's. Not familiar and comforting, but exciting. She hadn't known his hands; she hadn't been able to explain how he'd gotten the scars that peppered his fingers; she hadn't been able to predict their actions as they'd not-so-innocently-as-she-pretended brushed a strand of hair away from her forehead. The unpredictability had made her as uncomfortable as it did exhilarated and she'd sinfully delighted in it.

But what good would the thrill of the unknown be now when, as she drew in a sharp hiss of breath, The Needle bore down into her skin and she felt the intense pressure, pressure, pressure of it. She involuntarily squeezed her eyes closed more tightly and clenched her hand around Tom's in an attempt to block it out. Block it out…Block it out…Think about something else.

Parker had appendicitis when he was three. It was February. Tom was out of town, due back just before the twins' birthday, still a week away. She knew Parker wasn't feeling well; the whole day he alternated between sleeping—she kept finding him curled up with his bedraggled yellow blanket in different, weird places: the laundry room; under the kitchen table; on the landing of the stairs—and climbing on top of her to garner some sort of soothing relief that could only be found in the arms of his mother. He had a mild fever and didn't really eat all day, but she figured it was just a bug.

"Almost done," the doctor interrupted, momentarily jarring her back to reality. "You're doing great."

_Oh, just shut up_, she thought desperately. Tom ran his thumb over the back of her hand.

In the middle of the night she was woken by the creak of the door and Parker just managed to make it to the bedside before he vomited all over the floor. For a moment it seemed like the inevitable end to the day, but as she guided him to the bathroom and felt his feverish little body as he choked out nearly illegible complaints about a sharp abdominal pain, she was overtaken by a sense of panic. That concern made her call Mary Alice at two in the morning and drag her out of bed to come stay with the twins while she bundled her baby into the car and drove to the emergency room.

It was the longest night of her life. Parker all tears and her nothing but brave smiles that masked an intensely crippling fear. And they wheeled her little boy away to surgery while she stumbled outside to call Tom, a conversation she could not remember one word of, so hysterical and out of her mind she had been at the time. Later, when the doctor came out to tell her that Parker was okay and she was finally allowed to go to his bedside and kiss his forehead and hold his tiny hand, then, and only then, was she able to breathe again.

Eventually she fell asleep and when she woke up, Tom was next to her in a chair that looked even less comfortable than hers, sound asleep, his hand holding hers, her other hand still clasping Parker's. It was just another repetitive epiphany: her entire life had been about taking care of other people; Tom was the first person who had ever been there to take care of her. It was one of those things that she always knew but never thought about, so every time it became overt she was shocked all over again.

Maybe someday she'd stop taking that for granted.

From somewhere close but far away, Lynette heard the doctor mumble some sort of cooing praise and the pressure was suddenly, blessedly gone. As a bandage was firmly taped over the offended area of her neck, she cautiously opened her eyes to meet Tom's slightly woozy smile. Bless him, as many things as he was, a good liar had never been one of them. "You okay?" he asked. Slowly, she sat up, trying to catch a physically impossible glance at her wound.

"Yeah." She looked back to Tom and gave him as convincing a smile as she could manage. "Are you?"

"Oh sure. Of course. It's just that that was…" Tom took a deep breath. "…a really big needle."

Lynette rolled her eyes fondly and extended her leg to lightly tap Tom's knee with her toes. She felt weighed down by angst and her need to balance out the depression was almost overwhelming. It was the same feeling that had prompted all of her recent actions, only now there was no place to where she could run away and find some brief moment of contentment.

"Well we're all done here," said the doctor, too cheerfully. "They'll have the results for you in a day or two."

Tom stood while Lynette tried to process just how eternally long a day or two felt right now. Already she knew that she'd be distracted until the call finally came and she couldn't begin to fathom how she was going to take care of five kids and work and go about her daily life with this hanging over her head.

"Sweetie?" Tom had his hand wrapped around her elbow, tugging ever-so-slightly to prompt her to stand; she did so, reluctantly. "Do you want to go out and get something to eat? I'm sure Karen will be okay with the kids for another hour."

Lynette bit her lip. Truthfully, she wanted to do something irrational, like go mini golfing or find a stretch of beach somewhere and walk barefoot through the sand. She couldn't exactly tell Tom that, though, so she just said, "I'm not hungry."

"Oh. Well, okay."

Lynette wrapped an arm around her husband's back and after a second, Tom hooked his arm over her shoulders. "I guess we'll just head home then. I mean…Well…Do you want to go home?"

It was a precipice. Logically, Lynette knew that she should say yes. She should go home and hug her babies and curl up with a real page-turner to find respite from her thoughts. That's what she should do.

"No," she found herself saying. It was almost involuntary. "I want to go do something fun."

Tom pulled back a little and looked down at her, surprised, and wearing the first genuine smile she'd seen from him in much too long. "Okay," he agreed.

A thrill twisted up her spine. "Really?"

"Yeah. What do you want to do?"

Lynette stepped away from him, grabbing his hand and gently tugging him toward the door. "I have an idea, but it's going to be a surprise. Come on. I'll drive." And she let herself smile as Tom eagerly, trustingly, followed her out the door.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: **Oh me. Oh my. Oh not mine.

**Holding On**

A story by **Ryeloza**

Tom climbed out of the car, slightly bewildered, as he watched his wife toe off her sandals and step onto the too-long green grass. Whoever was responsible for the upkeep of this park clearly wasn't in tune with the use of a lawn mower; he could tell even in the dusky light. Lynette spared him the briefest of glances over her shoulder, but she seemed unconcerned by whether or not he would follow her and she took off toward the neat row of swings about fifty feet away. Slowly—possibly crazily—Tom trailed after her, though he didn't bother to take off his sneakers first.

There wasn't anyone else in the park. Night was falling; families were home eating dinner; it was only May and kids still had school in the morning. In fact, their own kids had school in the morning, but Tom could hardly feel guilty about abandoning them to Karen McCluskey's care for a little while longer when confronted by the sight before him.

Lynette had reached the swings and chosen one that looked especially beloved by the scores of children who spent time here; the divot of ground beneath her feet was long and worn, a testament to how many feet had trod over it as the swing was pulled back before that merry moment of release. Now she waited for him, her head cocked against the chain of the swing, her toes dragging over the deadened grass, and as Tom walked the last few paces she gave him a calm smile.

To describe Lynette as childlike was seemingly impossible by any stretch of the imagination. At times he'd catch a glimpse of fear or pain or anger in her eyes that stemmed from her childhood, but the sad truth was that she was simply an eternal grown-up. Even as a child, she'd had adult responsibilities thrust upon her and Tom had often wondered just how much leniency she'd been afforded to actually be a kid. It was a loss that showed through mostly everything she did; particularly her mothering, which was candid, accepting and fluid. She did her best not to let the adult world encroach on their kids' brief opportunity to be children, a compensation for her own youth. But tonight—as Tom watched Lynette tiptoe back and shut her eyes for a brief moment of anticipation before she drew her legs up and began to pump the swing higher and higher into the air—he could see the little girl in her for the first time.

He was suddenly much less disappointed that doing something fun hadn't meant going to a hotel to have sex.

As Lynette began to giggle—a sweet, silly, musical sound that he loved—Tom sat down on the swing next to her. He didn't move; didn't join her. It seemed much more perfect just to watch Lynette in this moment of unbridled delight. This was her need, not his; in all the time they'd been a couple they'd never done anything like this together. Why they were there—why Lynette would have chosen this activity on a night when he would have found a way to take her to the moon had she asked—could only be because she needed to be.

"Are you going to swing?" She passed by him, a colorful flash, her ponytail whipping to and fro. Somehow he couldn't find the words to answer. The truth was that he still felt like he was watching her through the eyes of a man at his most desperate. She had slipped away from him—was still slipping away from him—and what could he possibly do about it? Another man he could fight, threaten, chase away; he couldn't force Lynette to stay; he couldn't stop a disease from taking her from him.

After a few minutes, she seemed to find his silence worrisome and she slowed to a stop, dragging her toes through the grass to aid her. She smiled at him, as though to coax a similar response, and then grasped the chain of his swing, using the leverage of his feet's solid stance on the ground to pull herself toward him. When she couldn't go any further, he leaned forward to meet her and gave her a quick kiss.

"You're very serious." She let go of the chain, swinging away from him. He supposed that it was the correct word, _serious_; though he had enjoyed seeing her have fun.

"Tell me something."

Lynette's big toe traced patterns over the grass. "What?"

"Tell me something I don't know about you."

She frowned and said, more sorrowful than he expected, "You know everything about me."

"No." Tom shook his head, unconsciously downgrading into a more serious conversation. "No, I don't. I don't know what made you think to come here tonight. I don't know why swinging made you look happier than I've seen you in months. Hell, lately I don't know what you're thinking half the time."

To his surprise, the comment earned him a half-smile. "Is that really such a bad thing?" She sighed and dipped her head back to look up at the burgeoning moon. "Anyway, you know everything important."

_Except what made you fall for another guy, _he thought._ Except for why you've been so unhappy. Except for how to fix it._

"My dad," Lynette said suddenly, seeming to garner the seriousness of his request in the long pause, "put up a swing for me in the tree in our backyard while my mom was in the hospital having Lucy. Then he taught me how to swing. It's the only thing I ever remember him doing for me. And I remember that he was so impressed with how fast I caught on. I was only three and a half." She lifted her head and shrugged. "When he left, my mom cut down the swing and threw it out in the trash."

Tom studied her face: her skin looked unearthly pale; he could tell that her eyes, despite looking everywhere but at him, had a distant, feverish quality to them. He lost the fight to pretend that it was just a trick of the moonlight, but forced himself not to get overemotional. "You've never talked about your dad much," he murmured.

"He was so big," she said distantly. "Really tall. All these muscles. He had this home gym in the garage and I used to go sit out there and watch him lift weights. And the whole time I would think about how easy it would be for him to stop my mom from hitting us. But he never did." Absently, she leaned her head against the chain of the swing and stared blankly into the inky black distance where their car was parked. From the faraway depths of his memory came the sudden remembrance of Lynette, six months pregnant, hysterical after punching both him and the mailman in the same day and begging him to take their babies and leave if he ever even thought she might hurt them. It had been so absurd—he'd been frustrated and annoyed and pissed—but suddenly the whole thing made a lot more sense.

Lynette sighed. "I always liked that swing. I could make it go so high that my feet almost touched the leaves. It was just…fun."

The sounds of the night intensified in the quiet between them. Darkness had fully fallen now, and Tom knew that they should head home; as it was they'd be paying Karen quite an extra sum. But for the first time in awhile, he felt like he understood his wife.

Tom stood, ignoring Lynette's questioning tone as she said his name, and walked behind her. Lightly, he brushed his fingers over the backs of her hands and then took a firm grip on the chains of the swing, pulling her back. There was a pause before he let her go—Lynette tipped her head back, her eyes whispering a grateful thank you, and Tom bent awkwardly to kiss her lips, parting only when he gently pushed her away. Lynette began to swing again, gliding up toward the night sky almost as if she would fly away forever, but this time, when Tom sat back down on the swing next to her, he matched her pumping legs, and soon he was soaring just as high as she was. Lynette was right—it was fun; freeing—and soon their laughter spilled out uncensored, joyously tumbling back down to earth.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: **I have absolutely no claim to _Desperate Housewives_, as usual.

**A/n: **I'm sure many of you noticed my on-again, off-again relationship with this chapter. The truth is that quite simply, I was trying to rewrite chapter one through this chapter and it just didn't work. So after a lot of thinking, I finally decided to rewrite this chapter completely and just edit chapter one. Plot-wise, nothing about chapter one has changed. It's just a little more polished and—I think—fits better with the rest of the story. So there's absolutely no need to go back and re-read it if you don't want to.

This chapter is almost completely different though. Please forgive my haste in putting it up too quickly. I definitely faltered for a moment.

And, as always, more thank yous than I could ever really give to those of you who have been reviewing. It really helps to hear what you think.

**Holding On**

A story by **Ryeloza**

11:06.

Lynette tapped her pen against the pad of paper she was writing on and then, with a glance at her sleeping husband, stopped. Tom had passed out as soon as they'd wrangled the kids into bed; Lynette had the suspicion that he hadn't actually slept at all the night before, though he hadn't complained even once today. Of course, she hadn't gotten much sleep last night either, but she felt wired—almost as if she had consumed too much coffee right before bed.

She wished that was the reason.

11:08.

Tomorrow she needed to go to the grocery store after she dropped the kids at school. She'd been up trying to make a shopping list, but itemizing her household needs for the week was a dismally ineffective way to keep her mind off of her anxieties. Her brain kept skipping around instead of following her usual progression of thought: breakfast, lunch, and dinner then other things like laundry detergent or hand soap—

_Hand soap_, she jotted below _Ketchup_.

Did she have enough peanut butter for the week? Parker was only eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch right now and she absolutely couldn't remember if she had used the last of it in his lunch last Friday. And would Kayla want turkey or ham this week? She hadn't asked. She'd just get both. Usually whatever Kayla didn't want either Porter or Preston did, although Preston had been on a bologna kick lately.

_Peanut butter_

_Turkey_

_Ham_

_Bologna_

11:13

She wished she knew when the doctor was going to call. Suddenly she had a horrible vision of answering her cell phone at the deli and learning the news surrounded by an array of meat and cheeses. The thought was horrifying. She needed to be at home, sitting on her couch with Tom nearby to stop her from hyperventilating when she heard. Of course, he had to go to the restaurant tomorrow. Neither of them had been there since Friday; God only knew what had happened over the weekend. She wasn't even sure which manager had been on.

Which was another thing. She put a big star in the opposite corner of the paper and wrote _Hire new manager_. They were going to need someone who could practically run the place while she was in treatment. _If, _she chastised herself. _If I'm in treatment._

Beneath that, she added another note: _Figure out insurance_. Their new plan went into effect on June 1 and the deductible was ridiculous. If only she'd gotten sick in the winter, back when she still had her health benefits through work.

What a morbid thought that was.

11:19

She was going to have to write out the kids' schedules in minute detail this week. Tom had never really been able to keep track of the dentist appointments and doctor visits and soccer practices and trumpet lessons. If she was going through treatment, someone else was going to have to know where to be and when. Really she should make a chart; color code it. And make sure that she put in what Tom had to do too. He never remembered his appointments.

What was he going to do if she died?

The idea turned her to stone; she froze: pen against her lips; eyes glued to her tablet but completely unseeing; body unable to move. There was a loud, rushing sound in her ears as though the ocean was inside of her head and suddenly the room began to spin. With what felt like a great deal of effort, Lynette shut her eyes against the spell of vertigo and took a deep breath.

_I am not going to die._ A wave of nausea hit her. _I am not going to die_.

Thinking it did no good. It was too late. She'd let that one reprehensible question into her mind and now there was no taking it back.

Slowly, Lynette opened her eyes, glad to see that the room was still again. She took another peek at the clock.

11:28.

The doctor had to call tomorrow. She couldn't live like this. One way or another, she had to know what was going on. The tension had to be relieved. If she was fine then she was going to rent a hotel room, get very, very drunk, and spend the whole night celebrating with Tom. If she wasn't…

She glanced at Tom. His back was to her, but she could hear his breathing, steady and heavy; he was gone from the world for the night, but she very selfishly wanted to wake him up. If she could talk to him for a little while and get her mind on _anything_ else then maybe she could finally calm down enough to sleep.

But she couldn't do that. Not after today. Not after he'd sat with her while she had the biopsy and followed her into a park and not once called her crazy for wanting to swing. They'd laughed tonight. Laughed together for the first time in she couldn't remember how long. She couldn't ruin that now.

With a quiet but frustrated sigh, Lynette set her pad of paper on the nightstand and clicked off the light, rolled out of bed and padded toward the bedroom door. She needed to distract her thoughts somehow, even if it was with something as mindless as late night infomercials.

Lynette headed downstairs, making a mental note to be careful of the creaky step that she swiftly forgot upon noticing that the kitchen light was on. When she stepped down onto the landing, she wasn't entirely surprised to see Kayla sitting at the table, a chocolate cake spread before her as a midnight snack. She'd caught her stepdaughter downstairs in the middle of the night more than once before. Kayla, who noted her presence with nothing more than a glance, was completely unconcerned with having been caught.

"Kayla," she said, torn between exasperation and pleasure over the welcome diversion. "What are you doing out of bed?"

"Mrs. McCluskey told me I couldn't have cake after dinner," she said defiantly. It was coupled with a toying look; a cat playing with a mouse. Lynette understood, of course. She knew that Kayla wanted her to chastise her; to get into a war of words that would either wake up every other soul in the house or end with the cake smashed on the floor. Unfortunately for Kayla, tonight Lynette didn't have the energy to play her games, so she simply went to the drawer to pull out a fork, sat down next to her stepdaughter and dug into the side of the cake that Kayla hadn't eaten yet. The little girl gaped at her, thrown off by this maneuver, and Lynette took advantage of her shocked silence.

"Did you finish your science project?"

Kayla scowled, but continued to dig away at the cake with her fork. "Yes; no thanks to you. Daddy promised to help me and then he spent the whole day out with you." She gave Lynette an appraising glare. "What's wrong with you anyway?"

"What do you mean?"

"I heard Daddy on the phone this morning," Kayla said, rolling her eyes. "He told Mrs. McCluskey that he had to take you to the doctor. So what's wrong with you?"

A chill rushed through Lynette, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She constantly underestimated Kayla's powers of observation and she was tired of feeling like it was a lesson she had to learn the hard way. With keen awareness of all of her tells, Lynette said calmly, "I fell and hit my head last night. We went to the doctor to make sure that everything was okay."

"Why couldn't you just go yourself?"

"Your dad was worried about me."

Kayla gave her a look that was equal parts doubt and malice and Lynette resisted the urge to sigh. She could understand Kayla's anger, she could rationalize it, but that didn't make it any less hurtful. The barrier between them was seemingly impossible to break through, try as she might to chisel away at it. For the millionth time she felt the urge to just stop trying; for the millionth time she decided she had to give it another chance.

"You know," she said cautiously; it felt like treading into snake-invested waters, "I was just a little bit younger than you when my mom married my stepdad."

Kayla stabbed the cake, scraping the fork across the bottom of the plate to create a cacophony of unpleasant sound. "Did she make you go live with him?"

"He moved in with us. And when he first came, I was so angry. I didn't want him there. I didn't think that he cared about my sisters or me."

"But he did and you all lived happily ever after," Kayla scoffed. "I get what you're doing, Lynette."

Lynette ignored this. "He ended up being really great. I remember he was the first person who ever took me to a museum; I got to see the dinosaur skeletons. But the best part was that my mom acted differently around him. She…yelled less." Lynette forced a sickly smile over the embellishment and set down her fork. "And then one day he just left."

"So I guess he didn't really give a crap, did he?" Kayla looked at her expectantly, as if she thought she was exposing some horrible thought that Lynette herself hadn't had at least once in her life. For once it made her snide remark easy to gloss over.

"He and my mom couldn't make it work. Sometimes people can't. Sometimes two people aren't meant to be together."

Kayla dropped her fork and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. "What is your point?"

"I know what it's like to have your whole life completely change, Kayla. And you don't have any warning or say in it. And it feels horrible. It feels like you're powerless."

There was a quick flash—just a slight, momentary softening in the eyes—that told Lynette that something she'd said to Kayla had struck true. It cushioned her words, though they were as hard as ever. "Yeah? And what are you supposed to do about that?"

The question was so familiar that Lynette almost let out a bitter laugh, catching herself just in time. She couldn't sit there and tell this little girl that there was nothing to be done; that she'd probably have the same life-long issues with control that Lynette herself had. It was too cruel a fate to bestow on a thirteen-year-old.

"Well," she said slowly. A cascade of images flooded her mind: hugging her sisters; unburdening herself on the shoulders of friends; the trusting eyes of her children as she tucked them into bed; and Tom. Tom, holding her and listening to her and talking to her and forgiving her and loving her. "You just have to learn to trust the people who care about you. You have to believe that they'll be there for you, no matter what."

Kayla bit her lip, but made no other outward sign that she'd heard or processed what Lynette had said; the best she could hope for was that something had gotten through. Gently, she reached out a hand and brushed a strand of hair behind Kayla's ear, a hesitant move on her part and an uncharacteristic acceptance on Kayla's. "You need to go to bed. You have school in the morning."

With surprising acquiescence, Kayla nodded and stood, pausing only for a moment at the base of the stairs. "So did the doctor say you're okay?" she asked nonchalantly, the indifference indecipherable as to which answer she hoped for.

Lynette swallowed hard. "I'm going to be fine."

Kayla raised an eyebrow, probably questioning the tense of Lynette's phrasing, but she didn't say anything else. Obediently she went upstairs, creeping away into the night like a shadow and leaving Lynette more awake than ever. Frustrated, she pushed the half-eaten cake away from her and looked at the clock.

11:59.

A new day was about to start. A day that would probably change her life forever.

12:00.

Lynette buried her head in her hands and wept.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: **Oh it's still not mine. You all know.

**Holding On**

A story by **Ryeloza**

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep._

"Lynette?" Tom squished his face into his pillow, trying to block out the foreign sound of the alarm clock. It was a rare morning that Lynette wasn't up before the alarm sounded—usually his own wake up call was anything from the blankets being snatched away to a soft kiss, depending on Lynette's mood. Either one was preferable to this racket.

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. _

"Lynette please," he half-whined, half-moaned. "Make it stop." There was no response, and Tom finally lifted his head, surprised to see that Lynette was gone. With more effort than he wanted to exert at six in the morning, Tom rolled across the bed to smack at the alarm clock, finally succeeding in ending the torture. In his bleary-eyed haste, he also knocked something to the floor, but it took several minutes for him to wake up enough to retrieve it.

_Broccoli_

_Fabric softener_

_Ice cream_

_Apples_

_Bread_

_Milk_

Tom blinked several times, taking a moment to process that what he was reading was a shopping list. Lynette must have been up late and—if the notes in the margin were anything to judge by—unable to keep her mind off of things.

_*Hire new manager_

Tom frowned; seeing that written out so plainly there in Lynette's no-nonsense script seemed so deceiving. As if there wasn't an emotional, devastating history as to why they needed a new manager. For a second he wondered if she had been thinking of Rick as she wrote it and then he pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to squeeze out the thought. Was this to be his life from now on: overanalyzing everything? With a sigh of disgust, he tossed the notepad aside and got up to go to the bathroom.

_There really should be some kind of book for this_, he thought as he wet his toothbrush and then squeezed toothpaste onto the bristles. _How to Get Your Marriage Back to Normal after Your Wife Falls for Another Guy: Ten Easy Steps_. Ideally, her regret should have been enough; her promises and apologies satisfactory. But Tom was realizing more and more that it wasn't that simple, especially when the slightest things still caught him so off guard.

Spitting out the last of the toothpaste and taking a quick drink of water, Tom forced himself to abandon his self-pity in favor of thinking of the day ahead. The kids had school. He had to go to the restaurant, preferably early, because there was no way in hell that he wasn't going to be home when the doctor called. Even if she wouldn't admit it out loud, Lynette needed him there and if Tom was truthful, he needed to be there too.

As he headed down the stairs, Tom heard the television before he even entered the living room—staged laughter over the zany antics of _Gilligan's Island_—and so he wasn't surprised to find Lynette asleep on the couch. She was curled up on her side which was a sure sign that she was cold and Tom could tell just by looking at her that her sleep wasn't restful. The circles that had been under her eyes yesterday were even darker and deeper now.

For a minute, he strongly considered picking her up and carrying her upstairs. Lynette had become a much lighter sleeper since they'd had the kids, but he'd managed to do it without waking her before. He might have risked it, even though just confessing that he still lifted Penny had made his doctor livid, but he couldn't afford to injure his back again. It was quite plausible that the kids would actually be able to organize a _coup _if both he and Lynette were incapacitated at the same time. He had a brief vision of the boys on a never-ending sugar high and involuntarily shuddered; the chaos would be catastrophic.

Gingerly, Tom sat down on the edge of the couch and ran his fingertips up and down Lynette's arm. The movement woke her slowly; her breathing quieting and then her head gently lolling back on the pillow. She didn't open her eyes, but after a moment she said sleepily, "What time is it?"

Tom kept his voice soft, determined not to rouse her any more than he had to. "A little after six."

"Already?" She made a sound halfway between a chuckle and a moan. "I feel like I just fell asleep."

With the sneaking suspicion that what she said was actually true, Tom frowned. "You should go up to bed," he said firmly.

"Can't. Kids. School. Shopping." Lynette yawned and slowly opened her eyes.

"No, no, no." Tom laid a gentle hand over her eyes, silently encouraging her to shut them again, and then pulled it away so he could bend down and kiss her eyelids. As he sat back up he was happy to see the smile that played on Lynette's lips. "I'll handle the kids and get the groceries on the way home from the restaurant."

Lynette opened her eyes again and set her hand on his chest, rubbing up to his shoulder and back down. The look on her face was sweetly grateful, but Tom wasn't surprised when she balanced it with a slightly acerbic, "Are you crazy?"

"Not the last time I checked."

Ignoring this, Lynette cupped his cheek, running her fingers over the stubble there. "Sweetie, no offense, but by the time you have the kids up, dressed, fed and ready to go, school will be over. It's just a fact. I love you, but you can't do it without me."

Though it was subtle, Tom noticed the slight inflection in Lynette's words—she was asking a question without actually phrasing it as one. That, combined with the pensive look in her eyes, made his heart constrict and he struggled to hold himself together. Of course he could handle the kids' morning routine; they both knew that. But that wasn't what Lynette was really asking.

"You're right," he agreed, forcing a smile. "I'd never be able to do it without you."

Lynette nodded—an acknowledgement of what they were not saying—and wrapped her arms around the back of his neck so she could nudge him down for a kiss. He pecked her lips several times in quick succession, but Lynette seemed to have loftier ideas; after the third time, she pulled him in for a much longer, much deeper kiss, one of her hands trailing down his chest toward his pants. Acting purely on instinct, Tom shifted so he laid on top of her and his hand drifted up to grasp her breast through her shirt. Lynette moaned and the sound seemed to reverberate through him straight to his groin. He felt desperate for her. When they'd made love the other night it had been so tinged with sadness and fear that it had almost felt too cautious; they'd been two people hesitantly comforting one another. But this…

Lynette wrapped her legs around his waist, fusing them together; her hands felt like they were everywhere at once as they freely roamed his body.

This was sex: for fun; for love; for the plain sake that they simply wanted to do it. He wanted her and she definitely wanted him.

Lynette pulled away for a second, breathing heavily, and he moved his lips to her neck, teasing her with soft kisses and little nips. "Take off your clothes," she ordered. "Oh, God, Tom. Now."

She wanted _him_. For the first time in a long time, he actually felt sure of that.

He pulled away long enough to pull his shirt off and grinned down at her. "Whatever you say."

Lynette bit her bottom lip, looking up at him with a wicked expression. "You promise?"

Tom just laughed and answered her with another kiss.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: **This definitely isn't mine. Nothing has changed there.

**A/n: **Thank you all for reviewing! I appreciate your feedback more than you know.

**Holding On**

A story by **Ryeloza**

Lynette couldn't remember the last time that she and Tom had gone grocery shopping together. When they were first married, they used to go on Sunday mornings together; excursions she remembered as being oddly fun. Tom used to goof off—doing stupid stuff like making the peaches talk to the cantaloupe—just to make her laugh and the two of them would jokingly make up off-the-cuff slogans for some of the more bizarre products while they shopped. Unfortunately, she knew without a doubt that today would not be the day they resurrected the tradition.

The morning had started off as about as well as it possibly could have. There had been something fun and naughty about having a quickie on the couch—an act that managed to get her mind off of things for awhile and simultaneously put Tom in the best mood he'd been in for weeks. But that had been the high point of the day. The kids had been in rare form before school—no less than four fights between them and a full meltdown from Parker when he hadn't been able to find his gym clothes (_"But they won't let me play if I don't have them!"_). By the time they left for school and Tom headed off to the restaurant, Lynette's nerves were frayed beyond reason and she found herself once again unable to distract herself.

To make everything worse, Tom had arrived home just after lunch in a worse mood than when he left. When she asked what happened, he let out a terse, "Nothing!" and she'd huffily dropped the subject. Now, against her better judgment, they were both at the grocery store with Penny and it was quite obvious that this would not be like the shopping trips of yore.

Lynette looked over at Tom and rolled her eyes as he struggled with Penny. Their daughter was squirming and contorting her body in any possible way to prevent Tom from putting her in the cart as she incessantly whined; all the while Tom grew more frustrated and stubborn. On a good day, the futility of arguing over something this inconsequential with a four-year-old would have annoyed her; today of all days, she couldn't stand a single moment of this.

"I wanna walk!"

"Penny! Stop! I mean it!"

"No!"

"For God's sake, Tom!" snapped Lynette, unceremoniously dropping her purse in the cart. "Just let her walk!"

Tom stared at her for a minute, irritation burning in his eyes, but he seemed to decide that fighting with her was more pointless than fighting with Penny and he set her down. Then, apparently unable to go without the last word, he said firmly, "I don't want to hear you complaining in five minutes that you don't feel like walking."

Penny put her hands on her hips and sniped, "I won't!"

"Good," said Lynette, butting in before Tom could take offense at Penny's attitude. "Let's go."

They started to walk: Lynette pushing the cart as Tom meandered beside her and Penny trailed along between them. Every bit of tenseness hung in the air between them, thick and cloying as fog, and Lynette wasn't surprised when Tom said bitterly, "You know, I have handled her in the grocery store before."

"You really want to fight about this?"

"Who's fighting? I'm not fighting. I'm just making a point. This whole trip will take twice as long now."

"Yeah?" asked Lynette. She stopped to bag some apples. "And how long do you usually spend arguing with her before you even start shopping?"

"She's in a mood today."

Lynette turned to face him, viciously knotting the bag of apples and dropping them in the cart. "You're in a mood today. And for that matter, so am I. So can you please just let this go?"

For a moment, Tom quietly stacked a couple of cartons of strawberries into the cart, but Lynette could still feel attitude radiating from him. Something must have happened at the restaurant this morning—whatever pathetic denials he wanted to make—but she refused to press the matter unless she had to. Whatever it was would most likely bring up a whole host of demons that she didn't think she should have to deal with today. Maybe it wasn't fair to Tom; maybe it was too much for her to expect him to just drop everything considering what else was going on; but there had certainly been times when she'd give him a pass on his mistakes in the past. Just as her thoughts reached the point where she felt ready for a full-out battle in the grocery store, Tom muttered, "You're not the only one who's nervous."

Lynette sighed. "I know. But you being tense is only putting me more on edge."

"I'm sorry," said Tom a little briskly. It was obvious to her that he meant, _I'm sorry, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop acting like a jerk, _but she didn't press the issue_. _He added a bunch of bananas to the cart and then turned his back so he could wander further down the aisle to the vegetables. She gladly let him go.

"Is Daddy mad at me?" asked Penny.

"No, sweetie. Daddy just has a lot on his mind." She smiled as reassuringly as she could and ran a hand over Penny's head. "Come on."

The next half an hour passed in a flurry as Tom sulkily blazed ahead of her, randomly picking up items and—in a strange turn of events—using a delightedly amused Penny as a go between for him and the cart. For her part, Lynette kept a close eye on their list, pausing to nab anything that Tom missed in his erratic shopping method. Oddly, the technique was effective: both as a way to shop and at keeping them from killing one another.

"Mommy!"

Lynette glanced at Penny and reached down to take the huge box of Froot Loops from her. "What's up?" she asked.

"Daddy said to ask if you 'membered to get aminal crackers for Parker."

Lynette bit back a swear word. Parker and those damn animal crackers; he'd had to have them in his lunch for nearly three weeks now, though Lynette had the sneaking suspicion that he was trading them for something else at lunch. God only knew what. "No," she told Penny. "I'll go back and get them; I forgot toothpaste too."

Penny ran back toward Tom while Lynette swung the cart around so she could backtrack. The cookie aisle was closest, so she stopped there first, and then went back nearly six aisles to get the toothpaste. After eleven years, shopping for her family had become almost second nature, but as Lynette glanced over the rows of different types of toothpaste, she found herself suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of wistfulness.

"_What are you doing?"_

_Lynette looked up curiously. "Getting toothpaste," she stated obviously._

"_Colgate," said Tom as though it was the equivalent of brushing one's teeth with deodorant. "We use Crest." He snatched a box of it off the shelf and shook it at her._

_Lynette returned the favor with her own box. "No. _You _use Crest. I use Colgate."_

"_We're not going to buy two different toothpastes. That's ridiculous."_

"_Of course not," she agreed. She tossed her box into the cart. "We're going to use Colgate."_

_Tom grabbed the box back and to her great displeasure put it back on the shelf. "Why do you get to decide? Crest is great toothpaste. I've been using is since I was a kid." _

"_Colgate is better. I'm sorry to say that overrides your nostalgia paste."_

"_Says who? You used Crest all the time when you stayed at my place. Clearly you don't have a problem with it."_

_Lynette laughed incredulously. "I could say the exact same thing about you," she pointed out._

"_Not true. I kept a tube of Crest in your bathroom."_

"_You did not!"_

"_Yep. I hid it behind one of the thirty boxes of Tampons you had."_

_Lynette's mouth dropped open in shock. "You _hid_ toothpaste in my apartment? Why the hell would you do that?"_

"_Because Crest is the best." Tom grinned smugly and dropped his box in the shopping cart. And then, as if to further prove his point, he stepped forward and abruptly pulled her into a kiss that was way beyond inappropriate for a public place. "See," he said when he stepped back, "minty fresh."_

_In a slight stupor, Lynette let her fingers hover over her lips, haunted by the phantom of Tom's kiss. "Okay," she said stupidly. "Crest is fine."_

"Lynette!"

Slightly dazed, Lynette turned her head and saw Tom standing next to her looking torn between concern and annoyance. She wondered how long he'd been calling her name. "Yeah?"

"What are you doing?"

"Oh. Just getting toothpaste."

Still looking at her completely befuddled, Tom grabbed a box without looking at it and tossed it into the cart. Lynette followed the movement, surprised to see that he'd grabbed the generic brand, but before she could say anything, Penny came over and started to tug on Tom's sleeve. "Can I get this toothbrush? Pretty please?"

With Tom distracted, Lynette reached into the cart and traded out the generic toothpaste for a tube of Crest. Maybe he didn't need to live with nostalgia anymore, but right now she felt hopelessly dependant on it.

Something had to keep her going.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: **Still not mine.

**Holding On**

A story by **Ryeloza**

As soon as Tom parked the car in their driveway, he unbuckled his seatbelt and reached for the door handle. He was eager to escape the car: the awkward silence; the tension; the unspoken anger between him and Lynette. Before he could open the door, though, Lynette stopped him by putting her hand on his arm and saying in a falsely cheerful voice, "Penny, why don't you go play in the yard?"

"Okay," she agreed. Their daughter masterfully undid the safety harness on her car seat and was out the door in under a minute; like her brothers, sitting still for any length of time made her antsy. After she was gone, he and Lynette sat in silence for what felt like an eternity, each of them daring the other to speak first. It was Lynette who finally broke and Tom wasn't at all surprised when she went straight for the jugular. Anything less would have been disappointing.

"What happened at the restaurant this morning?" she asked. He could hear the emotion hiding underneath her deceptively even tone.

"Nothing."

She seemed to briefly contemplate and dismiss his Pavlovian response before asking, "Did something happen with Rick?"

"Funny that your mind goes right there."

"Well I don't know, Tom! You won't talk to me!"

"Oh, so now you want to talk? That's rich." A flicker of pain flashed in Lynette's eyes at his words. Despite still seething and having, for once, the high ground, seeing her hurt was still like a dagger to his heart. Slowly, he admitted, "Rick stopped by the restaurant this morning."

The color drained from Lynette's face so quickly that for a second Tom thought she might faint. He watched her carefully for a moment while her hands clenched the steering wheel, but unfortunately his concern was compromised by his insecurities. Why had she blanched like that? Was it the mere thought of Rick or simply the fact that he was dragging their problems into the open again? Not knowing only further raised his ire.

"What did he want?" Lynette finally managed to ask, albeit in a slightly strangled voice.

"Why does it matter?"

"I…It doesn't…I don't know what to say."

Tom shrugged. He had no idea what he wanted to hear from her. "He said he stopped by to turn in his apron, but the strange thing is he didn't have it with him."

"Tom…"

"I told him to keep it and then I kicked him out. The guy has some nerve, Lynette, I'll give you that. Stopping by in broad daylight."

Lynette didn't—couldn't?—look at him, but Tom could see the tears spill over and begin to roll down her cheeks. Somehow the sight of her crying broke his heart and made him madder all at the same time. "What do you want me to say?" she asked. "I can't control what he does."

Tom sighed. She was right; of course she was right. He had no reason to take this out on her beyond the fact that she was the one who had brought Rick into their lives and she was the one who had fallen for him. The thought of it made him want to punch his hand through a wall, but the simple truth was that she had apologized and she was still here and she wasn't making excuses. He so very badly wanted that to be enough, but it wasn't.

"What do you want from me?" she quietly demanded. There was a lethal edge to her words—a terseness that could cut him in two if he didn't tread carefully. She was mad at him, he realized, and maybe she had every right to be. "Do you want another apology? Is that what this is about?"

"No!"

"I thought we were moving past this!" she continued as if he hadn't interjected. "I know I fucked up. I know that this is all my fault. And maybe I don't deserve it, but I would think that you could cut me a little slack just for today!"

If he was a better person, the words would have taken all the wind from his sails. It should have. What right did he have to bring this up today of all days? But she didn't know how it had felt to walk into _his _restaurant today and feel as though the entire place was stained with pain and infidelity. His pride and joy had been perverted and Tom wasn't sure he would ever feel good there again. When Rick had swaggered in it had just been the cherry on top of the sundae. It was why he'd come home in a bad mood; why he'd clung to his anger; why he was confronting her now, no matter how wrong it might be. "What do you want me to say, Lynette?" he asked, barely concealing the tremor in his voice. "That I can just magically get over this because you want me to? It doesn't work that way!"

"I know! I know it doesn't work that way!"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Lynette gave an exaggerated shrug; combined with the angry tears in her eyes it was a fearsome look. "I know what it's like to have your trust betrayed by the person you love most in the world. I remember that feeling all too well."

Tom blanched. His hands were shaking so badly that he had to clench them into fists to control the tremors. "I apologized for lying to you about Atlantic City until I was blue in the face. I felt horrible about that. I will feel horrible about that for the rest of my life. What else do you want me to say?"

"That is exactly my point!" shouted Lynette. "And I chose to accept your apology. Because that's what you do in these situations. You either trust the person you love or you cut and run. If you can't trust me or believe in me then—"

"When did this become about me?"

"This is about us!" She paused, breathing heavily, and then said, "Are you having second thoughts?"

"What?"

"If we hadn't gone to the hospital…If I wasn't sick…" Lynette swallowed, but Tom didn't have the time or heart to make the futile protest they both knew wasn't true. "Would you still be here?"

"Yes," said Tom. He didn't think about it. He didn't stop to consider the fact that if they hadn't gone to the hospital, Lynette might never have admitted what was going on and they'd still be living in a hotbed of tension and misery. The possibility that she might have built a wall so thick that he'd never be able to break through didn't faze him. Even if she had finally come clean—had been open with him—he would have forgiven her eventually. She was his whole life. He needed her as much as he loved her and nothing could make him voluntarily let her go. But…

Why was there always a but?

"Would you?"

Lynette's eyes softened and she reached out to grasp his forearm, her fingernails lightly trailing over his skin, and nodded. "Yeah. I would."

"I'm sorry I brought it up again."

"I pushed you."

"Yeah, well…That's what you do best."

Lynette smiled and leaned over to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Come on," she said, suddenly all business. "We need to get that ice cream in the freezer." Before he could respond, she opened the car door and climbed out; Tom halfheartedly popped the trunk, but didn't go further than that. He felt exhausted and depressed and weary—a volatile combination that made him want to pause his life for awhile so he could collect himself before moving on. If he ever saw Rick again he was going to punch the bastard; he could vow that now as certainly as he'd ever given a promise before. He'd been as smug today as he ever was—cocky. As though he had won. But he hadn't.

He hadn't.

Lynette rapped on the window with her knuckles as she passed by, her arms laden with grocery bags, and Tom reluctantly opened the door to get out and help her. The world outside was full of laughter: Penny was running after a butterfly, giggling vociferously. The sound was incongruous with his mood, but also overpowering, and as Tom walked into the house, grocery bags in hand, he felt his spirits rise. But it was momentary high. The second he spotted Lynette, standing in the kitchen on the telephone, her body rigid and her eyes wet with tears, Tom knew. Wordlessly, he dropped the bags of groceries on the floor, walked to his wife and pulled her into a tight embrace. There was nothing to say; nothing to do but to hold on to her as tightly as he could.


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: **Nope. Not mine.

**A/n: **Thank you all so much for the reviews! I really do appreciate it. I've been stuck on this chapter for awhile, but I think I finally got it down the way I wanted. I hope y'all enjoy it!

**Holding On**

A story by **Ryeloza**

_I 'm falling apart…_

Lynette shut her eyes and didn't fight Tom as he gently pried the phone from her. He said something to the doctor, but there was a rushing sound in her ears that was so loud that it drowned out everything around her. She couldn't focus. It was like she had floated out of herself and far, far away; her soul was disconnected from her body because it simply couldn't process the terror.

Her whole world had collapsed before—tumbling down in on itself and leaving nothing but wreckage from which she had to build again. Her father leaving was a patchy remembrance like the blips that came from scratches on a record. It was the first scar; the first time she realized that staying was a choice and that most people decided to cut and run the second things got hard. Nothing remained…

When Glen left the hurt was so much worse. Maybe. It could have been that she just remembered it better. The circumstances were certainly similar: one day he was there and the next day he was gone. That's life, kid. Lydia bawled; Lucy started shoplifting; Lynette took it out on her mother. It wasn't hard. By then the anger overwhelmed the fear anyway.

Then her mother was sick and the axis of her world tilted once again. Suddenly she was the grown-up and it was her choice: stay or run; stay or run. Running was in her blood but she fought like hell because if one thing defined her it was _not being them_.

There were years she was lost; years she didn't care about anything; years she cared too much about everything. And she drifted by, making it work as best she could. Now, her body had turned against her; her entire world had changed once again and there was nothing she could do about it.

Tom squeezed her so tightly that she couldn't breathe, and rested his cheek against the top of his head, muttering again and again, "It's going to be okay. It's all going to be okay." He was trying to pull her back—an anchor that dragged her down to a place that she didn't want to return to. For once in her life, she didn't want to do what was right; she wanted to run away; to just keep floating out of her body until she reached someplace that wasn't here.

"It's going to be okay."

_Come back,_ he begged. _You can't leave me._

She wanted to go.

She'd run away from him once before. When she'd seen him with Norah in Atlantic City and her mind had forced her to believe what her heart could not, she'd left because staying had just been too unbearable a thought. She had to go because all she wanted to do was stay—a paradox that made no sense; nothing, nothing, nothing had made sense at that moment. She fled and put that distance between them and tried to harden her heart, to force it to believe what she'd thought she'd seen, all the while worrying that it would all be for nothing when she saw him again.

She'd been right.

Calling him to tell him about Porter had been the hardest thing she'd ever had to do. She'd been so afraid that no matter how much she tried to resist him somehow he'd slip through her defenses. As long as she'd known him, Tom had always found a way to fight through every wall she put up. He was fearless and so, so stubborn. She'd stopped questioning a long time ago why he loved her enough to fight for her when no one else in her entire life never had.

That day in the hospital, as always, Tom managed to pull her back. She'd chosen to believe him because her heart wanted to—needed to—and as much as she loved to pretend that she thought things out, the truth was that she was a passionate, impulsive person who acted on her heart's desires time and again. She still didn't know if that was a blessing or a curse.

And that night…

"_You can't leave me ever again," he begged her. They were lying in bed, his arms holding her in a frightening embrace—one that feared that she would disappear right before his eyes. "I know I screwed up. I know I made a mess of everything, but you can't leave me. Promise me. Promise me."_

_She felt sick. All of her wounds were so raw. She'd forgiven him, but she couldn't quite forget. Not yet. But he was desperate for her and, if she was truthful, she needed him just as badly._

"_I promise," she said. "I won't leave. I promise."_

"I won't leave." At first the words didn't seem real; she barely realized she said them. Swallowing hard, she repeated louder, "I won't leave."

"Of course not," said Tom, not realizing how close she'd come to fleeing. She could have just floated away from him forever; she was sure of it. As if he knew what she was thinking, he pulled her even tighter; she couldn't breathe. "Nothing is going to happen to you."

Something already had.

"I'm scared," she whispered. Her deepest, darkest secret—she'd never admitted that to anyone, ever. "God, I'm so scared."

He kissed the top of her head. "I know. I'm scared too."

She sobbed, sniffling into his shirt as a hot, hard knot settled in her stomach, making her feel nauseated. Neither of them could do anything to make this better, she realized. They were spiraling out of control with no way to regain power over the situation. All they could do was stand there and cry and admit that they were scared to death. None of that meant much; none of that did anything. And in a moment like this, she was suddenly, fearlessly, able to admit exactly what terrified her.

"I don't want to die."

Tom hissed, as though she had punched him. Maybe she had. "You're not going to die," he said, almost pleading with her.

_You don't know that…_

"What are we going to do?"

Tom's breath hitched, and then he took several deep breaths that did little to calm him. "We're going to go to the doctor and we're going to do everything he tells us to do. And you're going to get better. Because I can't live without you. And it's as simple as that."

Lynette shut her eyes. For a moment, she imagined that she could just float inside of Tom—that they could just become one person and be together forever, never sick, never unfaithful, never doubting, never hurt, never lying, never unhappy. They would just be one, and nothing would ever come between them.

"I won't let you go," said Tom.

Lynette nodded. She knew that. He never had.

No matter what else happened, they were forever.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: **This isn't mine in any way, shape or form. I'm just having some fun.

**A/n: **Thank you to those of you who reviewed! I really appreciate that you take the extra time after reading to let me know what you think. It truly means a tremendous amount to me.

**Holding On**

A story by **Ryeloza**

Tom descended the stairs slowly, glancing toward the couch to see if Lynette had actually fallen asleep while he'd been tucking in the kids. Though she would have killed him if she knew, he had slipped one of her sleeping pills into her water at dinner. By the time they'd ordered the kids upstairs, she'd already been half-asleep on the couch; it looked like the intervening time had done the trick. With a ghost of a genuine smile, Tom walked over to the couch and leaned down, hooking one of her arms over his shoulder and slowly pulling her up.

Lynette moaned, almost whined, as he put an arm around her back and forced her to stand. In an ideal world he could have carried her upstairs without waking her; in their reality, it wasn't an option. "Come on, beautiful," he murmured quietly as her head lolled against his shoulder.

"What time is it?"

"Bedtime."

"Uh-huh."

Tom kissed the top of her head and carefully started back up the stairs. He felt ten years older than he had when he'd woken up this morning. It was surreal how the problems plaguing his marriage seemed inconsequential now compared to the terror that his wife was sick. That morning he hadn't known how to begin to fix things between them; tonight he wasn't sure that they'd be able to fix anything. There was only so much fighting a person could do at one time, and right now they were preparing for the hardest battle of their lives. He was beginning to think that everything else had to take a backseat to that.

With every step they took, Lynette leaned more heavily against him until he was practically carrying her down the hall. As they reached their room, he was surprised to hear her mumble, "You tuck me in?"

In spite of everything, he chuckled. It was impossible not to appreciate the rare moment of innocence, no matter the circumstances surrounding it. "Sure," he agreed, setting her down on the bed and steadying her by holding her shoulders. It didn't take long to undress her in her compliant mindset, and he settled for just pulling one of his old t-shirts over her head for her to sleep in. The second he pulled down the covers on their bed, she slumped over, and he gently tucked her legs in and pulled the comforter back up over her. Lynette murmured contentedly; smiling, he bent and kissed her temple. "Goodnight."

Lynette didn't respond, and he sighed in relief, grateful that she was asleep. They were going to the doctor right after they dropped off the kids at school; the rest was going to do her a world of good.

He didn't bother to consider how much a good night's sleep would help him as well.

For the next hour, Tom loaded the dishwater, halfheartedly cleaned up the kitchen, and packed the kids' lunches before he collapsed on the couch. For a minute, he considered turning on the television and letting the flickering pictures lull him to sleep, but his incessantly flitting thoughts won out, and instead he pulled out the little notebook he'd been writing in since yesterday.

_May 27, 2008_

_Dear Lynette,_

_There is so much that I want to say to you that I already know I never will. I'm sorry for this morning. That's probably bothering me the most. But we're going to pretend that never happened; I know that. Bringing it up again would only make things worse now, but I needed to express it somewhere—even if it's someplace you'll never see it._

_Do you know how guilty I still feel about everything that happened last year with Norah? Sometimes I think about how different everything would be if I had never gotten that letter from her. If I had never known about Kayla. I sit here and think about how our marriage feels split now into the time before Atlantic City and after, and it kills me. I love Kayla. I do. But there are times that I honestly wish I'd never found out about her, and then I just feel horribly guilty about that too. It would be different if I had always known about her; if you had always known about her. She would have been built into our lives instead of us having to fit our lives around her and it's just so damn frustrating…_

_That's when everything started, isn't it? I've gotten so good at pretending that we've moved past that, but when you brought it up this morning I could see the hurt burning in your eyes like it just happened yesterday. You're still mad at me the way I'm mad at you about Rick, and I have no idea how to get past that. We might have forgiven each other, we even understand each other, but both of us still feel betrayed. How do we fix that? _

_I know you're scared right now. I am too. I'm scared to death that I'm going to lose you and there isn't a damn thing I can do to stop it. I'm scared by how visibly terrified you are. You're so unflappable; nothing ever shakes you. But today you broke in a way I've never seen and it scared the shit out of me. I didn't know what to do…I don't know what to do. I am so sick of not knowing what to do._

_I love you so much that I don't know what I would possibly do without you. I can't…My mind can't even grasp the concept of a world without you in it. Do you remember what you said to me a couple of years ago when the kids had chicken pox? Well, I want you to know: you are my _everything_. You are. And there wouldn't be life after you. There wouldn't be anything. _

_When you agreed to marry me I knew I was the luckiest man in the world. I never thought then about this moment. Does anyone? In that moment of happiness does anyone really see all those moments when things are going to hell? I don't think they do, even though marriage is all about promising to be there for someone no matter what happens. And I will be there for you. I swear. I am not going anywhere. I'm not going to run away. I will be here for you every single day no matter what._

_When this is all over, when we finally get back to normal, we're going to take a trip somewhere. Just you and me. No kids. No problems. Just the two of us on some deserted beach somewhere. Alone. We haven't been on a trip together in years, and we deserve one. Maybe that's part of the problem. The world revolves around the kids and the house and our jobs and all the stupid crap that comes up every day. We weren't even married a year when the twins were born. So maybe, for once, the world needs to revolve around us._

_That's what I'm going to think of whenever this seems unbearable. You and me, sitting on the beach watching a sunset._

_We're going to get there, baby._

_I love you so much._

_Tom_

Tossing the pen onto the end table, Tom rubbed his eyes. He felt like crying, but he was no longer capable. There had been too many tears already; there would be more tomorrow. Sighing, he leaned over to turn off the light and slowly headed back upstairs. He felt tired and old, depressed by the idea that there wouldn't be respite from this for many, many months. But eventually… That was what he had to remember. Eventually. Eventually.

Lynette was dead to the world when he finally climbed into bed. He just stared at her: the steady rise and fall of her chest; the slight parting of her lips; the way her hair fanned out over the pillow. She was beautiful. Sometimes he couldn't believe how beautiful she was.

"Love you," he whispered quietly. He leaned down; kissed her forehead. "Love you so, so much."

He didn't know how long he stared at her before he finally drifted off to sleep.


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: **It's never been mine and it never will be.

**A/n: **Well, this is it. The last chapter. Thank you all for sticking with me through this whole story. Thank you for reading. Thank you to those of you who have reviewed. I truly appreciate it. Your continued support really does motivate me to write these stories.

Enjoy!

**Holding On**

A story by **Ryeloza**

The room was still dark when Lynette woke up, but she didn't bother to look at the clock. The number of hours that remained between now and the alarm sounding didn't matter. Yesterday, she'd wanted to go, go, go, rushing toward that news—whatever it was—just to know. Today, she wanted time to slow down; she wanted to savor these last moments before everything changed.

Tom had his arms around her, hugging her to his chest in a tight embrace. It was somewhat unusual; they both tended to reach for one another while asleep, but his arm flung over her stomach or her head resting on his chest was a far cry from him clinging to her body. His breath was warm against the back of her neck, one of his legs had slipped between hers, and she could already feel him, slightly erect, pressing against her from behind. It was strange to think that just over a week ago, she'd spent the night with Rick embracing her like this. She'd been so on edge the whole time—uncomfortable and excited and guilt-ridden—trying to justify the situation because of the cold, trying to ease her conscience by telling herself it meant nothing. At the time, she'd only felt worse, secretly believing that it was everything no matter how hard she pretended, but it was easy to see now that the whole thing had been an infatuation. She wasn't in love with him. She was in love with the attention he'd shown her: he'd made her feel young and pretty and mysterious; like she was more than just a mother and a wife.

Gently, Lynette ran her fingertips over Tom's forearm, no doubt in her mind that he was soundly enough asleep that the slight movement wouldn't wake him. There was a time—maybe a lifetime ago—that they had shared that sexual tension. Working together; long nights; small touches that were easy to read too much into; a couple of stolen kisses. Even once they'd started to date and then sleep together, there was an intense sexiness in learning to read one another, in discovering each other's secrets and desires. She missed that. She could recreate the illusion of that with another person, but the truth was that what she really wanted was to relive the magic of falling in love with her soul mate. The terrible reality was that she couldn't go back—only forward—and tomorrow was the place she wanted to run from most of all.

There was no way to know what was going to happen over the coming days and weeks and months. She could go into that doctor's tomorrow and find out that she wasn't going to be able to beat this. She didn't want to think that; Tom wouldn't even let her verbalize the thought; but it was a very real possibility. It didn't mean she wouldn't fight like hell anyway—fighting was in her nature—but she felt like she and Tom had to face reality. Their future had never been so uncertain. Perhaps that was why the past, now more than ever, was so comforting.

She could remember the moment that she first realized that she was in love with Tom. She'd had to work late one night; it was nearly midnight by the time she got home, and to her surprise, Tom was there, fast asleep on her couch. It was clear he'd been waiting for her—there was a bottle of wine and two glasses on her coffee table and soft music still lilted from her CD player—but he hadn't quite been able hold on. As she'd stood there, watching him sleep, she'd become totally, idiotically aware that the growing tenderness she felt for him was actually love, and, to her complete surprise, found that the idea didn't scare her at all.

"I know in my heart that we are meant to be together," he'd told her when he proposed. "We have the kind of love that's going to last a lifetime because it grows with us. I already know that I'm going to love you even more in ten years than I do right now because I already love you more every day. I can't promise you that I'm going to be the perfect husband or that we're always going to be happy. I can't really promise you anything except that I will always take care of you and I will always love you."

Lynette traced her finger over Tom's wedding ring, crying as genuinely as she had when Tom had said those words to her eleven years ago. Their marriage had had many ups and downs, particularly over the last year, but everything Tom had promised her was still true. He was still taking care of her. And his love for her had never wavered.

She felt him wake up before he spoke. His breathing quickened, his arms shifted against her and his nose nuzzled the back of her neck. "Hey," he said, worry lacing his voice. Instinctively, Lynette wiped the tears from her cheek, upset that she'd woken him up; upset that she was crying. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She didn't want to explain to him the million thoughts that swirled in her mind. She didn't want to tell him about the guilt that twisted her gut; the fear that tugged at her heart; the regrets and wishes that weighed so heavily on her soul. She didn't think she could explain it if she tried.

Tom kissed the back of her head. "Okay," he breathed, for once, not pushing her. He would interpret her pain in whatever way he could; he probably knew why she was crying better than she did. "Okay. Okay."

Lynette shut her eyes, letting the cadence of his reassurance calm her. He was treating her with kid gloves, but for once in her life she wasn't going to deny that she needed that. She wanted to be comforted; she wanted to be coddled like a hurt child. And Tom was the only person in the entire world who could.

"Please," she sighed. "Just hold me."

Tom kissed her again, and then she felt him nod as he pulled her even more tightly against him. "I'm never letting go. I promise."

Lynette took a deep breath and nodded. She knew. For twelve years, they'd stayed together through everything. No matter what happened, they'd get through this too. She sighed, slowly calming down. "I just need you to hold on to me."

"I know," he whispered. "Always."

_-Fin-_


End file.
